Greedy Goblin

Friday, October 24, 2014

Coming soon: dual renting

People making bets about the future of Nullsec after Phoebe agree in one thing: the rental empires will fall. This is most probably true. However they implicitly assume that renting itself will fall and renters have to run. This is completely wrong.

Pirates and other small PvP groups are not the competitors of renters. Renters do PvE, mostly ratting. Pirates don't really want to rat. Chasing away ratters without ratting yourself is just dumb: the income from the rats in your land will be gained by no one. Renters have no loyalty to the landlord as we saw PBLRD members running to B0T or NA for better service. They are ready to pay to anyone who guarantees them the ability to rat in peace. Currently these are the big coalitions.

Currently the strategic and tactical control are the same. If you own Sov, then - using jump bridges and bridging titans - you are able to drop an overwhelming force on anyone who is messing in your land. Pirates live by hit-and-run. Renters don't have to fear them as long as they watch local. The pirates cannot reasonably attack structures because the landlord shows up with a supercap blob or 500 subcaps.

After Phoebe the strategic and tactical control will split. The regional power will still hold the Sov as it can still deploy and grind down everything in a week while stomping on any attempt from the locals to fight. However they will have to deploy to do so, at the cost of not being anywhere else. This means that outside of such deployments, the local pirates are free to plant their towers and siege renters. If the Sov holder scrambles whatever members they have locally, the pirates would likely beat them up. This creates an awkward dual-power situation: both the formal Sov-holder and the local pirates are owning the same land.

If both "owners" are rational, they both ask for a limited rent from the renter. The sum of the two rents should be around the current rent. The renter needs the blessing of both of them to continue operation. Without the blessing of the Sov-holder they can't dock in stations or get system upgrades. Without the blessing of the local pirates, they can't hold towers or stay in space.

In most cases, this will not happen at first. The landlords will be reluctant to acknowledge that they lost tactical control and can no longer demand full rent. The pirates will likely approach with an "I just want the World burn". This can lead to an initial exodus from some regions. An empty land where no one does PvE is good for no one. The Sov-holder will realize that lower rent is better than no rent, while the pirates will realize that having income is better than no income while having blue ratters at least attract random roamers that they can kill, while empty space attracts no one. So after the initial hiccups, the rates of this dual-renting will be accepted and renters will continue ratting as they always did.

Not only the pirates are an issue. moreover they expect bigger attacks from blocks in those areas. this cant be anymore defended on multiple fronts. so it is good to focus back on home and create buffer or neutral zonespirates are also not very reliable or loyal to do contracts with

I don't think that there will be two landlords. The "pirates" aren't in it to earn a rent. They want explosions and killmails. As far as I know pirates aren't interested in policing an system an establishing any sort of tactical control.

I agree with Gevlon. While pirates currently may only be in it for fights, there is real potential in receiving a rental income AND using renters as bait for fights...especially in those regions that are furthest from the big empires.

Otherwise, the isolation that the jump changes will bring will just empty out nullsec even more.